The pleasure of taking in a movie had long been denied those with impaired vision.
But this is gradually changing thanks to an increase in the number of volunteer audio guides, who explain what is happening on the screen to visually disabled moviegoers who still want to experience a cinema.
A showing of director Yoji Yamada's "Kakushiken Oni no Tsume" ("The Hidden Blade") was held at a civic center in the city of Saitama last month with accompanying audio explanations. The film depicts the life of a samurai toward the end of the Edo Period (1603-1868).